Monday, June 28, 2010

Search in Progress

It always amazes me how quickly information, as in really old, almost forgotten information, starts to blossom and pore in when you really search for someone hard.

My girlfriend’s family has been missing a sibling for many years, since the girl was about six years old. My girlfriend’s aunt was in a situation in the mid 1970’s in which she had to give up all of her children to foster care.

At some point or another, all of the children were later reunited with the aunt and have always had a relationship since. All with the exception of one girl. The family made sporadic attempts to find out her whereabouts, but nothing ever came of it. And the story of this girl is one of the first anecdotes I heard once I got to know my girlfriend's family.

After successfully finding my own sister, who had been legally adopted (read, totally sealed records, seemingly impossible to locate), I know what is possible in the people-finding realm. So I have essentially volunteered myself to help the family find this missing sibling. As I said, it's a story I had heard year after year, and frankly, I just figured instead of hearing the story another time, why don’t I just find her for them?

So I’ve started interviewing many family members, running ads in papers, calling county protective and health departments, churches, libraries, and a whole bunch of other roads.

Without getting into any of the details, I am really amazed as I always am at how much information lies dormant out there in people’s memories, and also in public records, that has just not been stimulated or accessed properly. It’s the smallest details that, not sometimes, but are always the most important. It’s this memory of a food place they had visits at, or that memory of something that someone said after she had been placed that opens up a whole new world of search material.

I haven’t found her yet, and I’m guessing it’ll be a very long road, but what could be more important? I have the stamina for this kind of thing, and my feeling is good about our chances on this one!